Lessons learned from ’being’ virtually there: Worded action in the perceptual field of online computer games

• Computer games are assumed to, for better or worse, influence knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of the user. Assumptions are often based on computer games complex environments and visual components. This has brought along expectations about using computer games within education for pedagogical purposes. Though, attempts to use computer games in education has shown to be a complicated affair, demanding structures surrounding such attempts that often is not met. Further, research show that games cannot be used in ways that other media have been invoked in education. Computer games as category is used to a wide array of products. Those different genres give rise to different activities from the players. Online game environments are a category which can be seen as the next computer game area to be glanced at for pedagogical purposes. Though, earlier research on learning and computer games are based on computer game formats that lack crucial features from online games. The most obvious difference is that players’ meet other players within these online spaces, and interact through virtual bodies. The most popular and developed virtual worlds focus game-specific contents. This paper take such online game worlds (i.e. massively multiplayer online role-playing games, MMORPG) as focus for scrutinizing players activity. How, then, are online game formats to be understood in relation to learning aspects? Earlier research concerning Massively Multiplayer Online Games has, among all, studied the lingo developed between players’ in online games. This paper advocates for studying online gaming worlds as domains in itself. In other words, how players’ manage their virtual bodies (i.e. the avatar) in conduct with others in task-oriented group activities, or the work players do when they role-play a character through the mediated tool of the avatar. To play, live and communicate in online games, players’ need to master their avatar through typing in chat channels and using interaction methods that have been institutionalized in these online spheres. These institutionalized ways to act and be, stems from earlier technological online environments. Hence, the paper argues that the skills and competencies needed to “be” in an online game space must be considered before embracing them for learning potentials outside activities that is done in ordinary “virtual” life. The empirical material comes from screen-captured video-recorded avatar-interaction within the online games World of Warcraft and The Lord of the Rings Online. Detailed transcripts have been transformed into sequential art to highlight aspects of the activities to make the setting understandable for outsiders.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Communication Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

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